


Little Accidents

by Shiggityshwa



Series: La Troisième Fois [8]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Baby Fic, Developing Relationship, F/M, Kid Fic, Three different storylines, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-28
Updated: 2018-11-05
Packaged: 2019-08-08 18:00:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16434167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shiggityshwa/pseuds/Shiggityshwa
Summary: Vala deals with a newborn in three different storylines. Only chapter 3 deals with SGA. Each chapter is AU. Part 8 of 10.





	1. Home

**Author's Note:**

> I managed to push myself and finished this series (including the bonus story so there are now 10 stories within the series).

It is absolutely perfect. That’s all it is.

 

Their daughter is born on the landing between the sixth and seventh floors. Cameron wraps her up in his dusty BDU jacket, still dirty from three days into a seven-day mission, filthy from attacking the Apple Planet in order to protect her, and the rest of the SGC, but since she was the one who ate the forbidden fruit it’s really just her.

He is her hero.

He is over the moon, laughing to hide the tears in his eyes, red-faced with the pressure and relief, cradling their daughter and dropping kisses onto the tuft of dark hair on her head. “It’s a girl,” tells her again because she didn’t react much during his first three passes of the same sentence. His firstborn, her third. “I knew it was going to be a girl.”

“Were you hoping for a daughter?” She questions, leaning into the corner, her body stirring from the sudden rush of pain, the sudden dismissal of it. “Mr. Air Force Manly Man.”

“A son would’ve been great, but I don’t know, I just knew it was a girl from the beginning and I worked myself up towards it.” Sets their daughter against her chest, little arms and legs stiff and contained. “She’s perfect.”

“Yes,” she sighs, and revels in the weight and warmth the baby, the tiny huffs of breath against her chest. “But you’re going to have to keep the boys away from her.”

“Oh I’m sure I’ll be purchasing a shotgun before she turns sixteen.” He caresses their daughter’s head and then turns his attention to her. “How are you feeling? Doing okay?”

“Very tired, and cold.” His hand masks her forehead once again. “I don’t have a fever this time, Cameron.”

“I think we should get you two to Dr. Lam.”

“And how do you propose we do that.”

He shrugs his shoulders and scoops his arms underneath her legs and back. “You carry her, I’ll carry you.”

“Cam—Cameron.” She jostles as he lifts her, and he smells like dirt and dust and sweat. His cheek is still leaking a bit of gooey blood and there’s grit dried in behind his ear. “Do not drop me.”

“Don’t drop her,” he grunts climbing the stairs back up to floor six. Perhaps the elevators are in service again.

“Do _not_ drop me.”

“I got you, Princess.” He does, his arms unwavering, his breathing steady as he kicks open the doorway to floor six. “I got you.”

*

She spends her allotted time in the medical bay, in the same horrid blue medical scrubs that they force her to wear during each of her admittances. Cameron is supposed to leave for mission debriefing, but he never does. Sits in an armchair he drags in from one of the nearby offices and holds their daughter while blurting out names, seeing which she responds to, which of course doesn’t as she’s only a few hours old and unlike her older half sister, is aging in an appropriate measure.

Everyone visits, mostly out of curiosity, a little out of duty, a little from boredom and when he finally does leave to go take a shower, Dr. Lam trailing him and expressing how he needs to keep the water out of his wound, she misses him and tries to explain it away with the surge of hormones, with the unease of breast feeding, how everyone just keeps tumbling into this room like she doesn’t have a tiny human latched to her chest.

He returns just as she plucks their daughter away from her chest and readjusts her scrubs, holding the baby sort of sideways against her deflated but very tender stomach and he holds out his hands. “Pass her here, I’ll burp her.”

“You’ve just had a shower, she’ll probably spit up all over you, she’s a fast eater.”

“Princess, I’m going to end up with baby puke on me at some point, it might as well be now.” She relinquishes their daughter and watches as his large hand buries her back in gentle pats. A tiny burp gurgles up and he grins, “there you go Cupcake.”

“Cupcake?”

“Well.” Cradles the baby back in the crook of his arm, luckily her baby shower last week provided them with most of the material they needed in immediacy, like the soft onesie that Sam bought covered in little woodland creatures, shrouding their napping infant. The way he coos, the way he bounces her a bit in his lap and draws his expression into ridiculous faces even though she can barely see seems right, feel right. “She probably has the theme to Cupcake Battles ingrained into her DNA now.”

She says something before the feeling fleets, shifting her back up more onto the pillows and sitting up fully despite the small pain that flares up. “I want to leave.”

He nods understanding but not fully, his eyes still on their daughter. “I’ll talk to Lam and see if you can go back to your room. Unless the base is attacked again I don’t see—”

“I want to go home.”

“You want to go home? Like—like back to your home world?” The panic in his voice is palpable and visual in the various fluctuations of his eyes. Can tell he’s trying to bypass her suggestion without upsetting her, which is not what she meant at all. “I don’t know if that’s the best idea right now. I mean, do they have the same medical care on—on—where are you from?”

She slips her hand into his, feels the warmth of him, the warmth of their daughter and sighs again, “Take me home, Cameron.”

*

They slowly fall into a routine. Their daughter’s room is right next door to his bedroom, the one all decorated in yellows and frogs and ducks and everything the Tau’ri make for their infants have the sweetest faces and are made from the softest materials. The baby room barely gets used because she frets about not having their daughter easily accessible, and in less than an hour he returns with a bassinet. They barely put her in it, but it’s a nice backup.

When she wakes to do midnight feedings, he pulls himself up from bed, wipes the fatigue from his eyes and sits waiting to receive their daughter for burping duty. Sometimes his hand plants on her back and holds her steady as she feeds because she’s so tired she topples over. Sometimes he retrieves their daughter from her and covers her because she’s too exhausted to care.

She walks slowly down the hallway to the bathroom, or in the opposite direction to the kitchen and he’ll playfully burst by her, less achy, just as tired, but he’ll try and race her, and she can’t just let him win. So she jumps on his back and drags him to the ground as he shouts out in surprise. They laugh, he rolls, and she has to remind him of the timeline Dr. Lam delivered to them.

Six weeks is a long time, and they try to distract themselves.

One day when their daughter is almost four weeks old he returns from a morning check-in at the SGC with a coffee for him, a tea for her, and some pastries, as she sits breastfeeding on the couch watching Cupcake Battles. He makes her tea and settles on the couch beside her, his arm wrapping her shoulders.

“How did it go?” Asks during the commercial break, exchanging their daughter for her tea.

“Well—” Adjusts the baby over the cloth he’s lain over his shoulder, coos into her ear and kisses her hair which is lightening in color. “They want us to name her.”

“Name her what?”

“Anything.” Their daughter burps and he bunches her into the crook of his arm again, her little head resting against his bicep.

“I need more time.” Shifts her vision back to the television and gulps at her tea so she doesn’t have to answer him.

“I know why you don’t want to name her—”

“It’s not that I don’t want to name her, it’s the idea of imbuing someone with something so permanent—”

“She’s permanent, Vala.” Their daughters head lies slanted on his arm as she tumbles deeper into sleep, limbs going lax. “She’s not going anywhere.”

“I just—” and all the emotions from Adria, from not being able to touch her child, from not being able to influence, or teach or love or hug her child and what if the Apple Planet people come and demand retribution? What if—

“Hey.” His hand cups her cheek, turning her head up when her eyes begin to drop again. “Nothing is going to happen to her. I promise.”

“Cameron, you can’t promise—”

“No. You don’t understand.” The pause is intense, his eyes never straying, his voice never wavering. “I won’t allow anything to happen to her.”

She rolls her eyes at his attempt to soothe, his attempt to once again take the chaotic situations fate has lined up for them and trying to organize them. Tries to shake her head free from his touch, but it remains, and his stare intensifies. “No one is going to touch this kid.”

*

They name her Beatrice. Decide to do so while reclining on the same park bench where they sat just a few months before. He holds both their ice cream cones, while Beatrice is slung to her chest, comfy in privacy and away from the sun. Every few minutes she leans forward and gobbles down some of her cone which is dripping down his arm. She leaves it for a bit, more entertained by causing a mess than the idea of eating ice cream.

Children run around in a flurry, diving into the fountain, playing rough games and pushing each other to the gravel, screaming at birds, and throwing rocks. Parents run and scream after them, some sit on the benches and pay more attention to their phones.

Her knee raises keeping her balance as she leans against the back of the bench. He wipes the melted food from his arm and tosses it into the garbage to his left, then wraps the same arm around her knee. “I can’t wait to play with her. To watch her run and laugh and scream.”

He doesn’t pressure her for a name, it’s been another week and only one more before he has to return to work, and she worries because she won’t be there, she’ll be on the couch trying to figure out how to work the pre-sets on his satellite television, or maybe she’ll take a risk and walk their daughter around the block. She’s still on house arrest because her half Tau’ri child  has more rights then her. Landry agrees in the absurdity and he and Daniel are fighting for the IOA to ease up on their protocols.

Fingers run through his hair and he glances back at her, eyes not visible through the sun glasses but she knows the expression he’s giving, knows what he’s thinking. “Beatrice.”

“Beatrice?”

“It’s strong. I want our daughter to be strong.”

“Beatrice,” speaks it again and nods as the words fall of his tongue. “Bea.”

 


	2. I Had A Baby

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has a brief rewriting of the Vala/Daniel scenes from Flesh and Blood rewritten and going AU from the original episode from there.   
> Spoiler Alert--I'm not a big fan of Vala and Daniel together, mainly because I perceive his treatment of her negatively, sort of like she's a nuisance (which I'm willing to admit she can be, but not always, whereas he always seems irked by her). I also feel like he would've cared more about certain things (the audiobooks do a good job of showing his trusting/caring of her) but case in point, when she reveals she's had a child it's glanced over for exposition. I feel like Daniel seeing her for the first time in 9 or 10 months would be a grander thing, or at the very least he would be concerned for her physical/mental health.   
> I'm not trying to bash any shippers at all. I just wrote what made sense to me.

It is too hard for her. That’s all it is.

“What happened to you?”

Her system has taken so much shock in the last few hours that she’s not sure she can muster up the proper level for his reinsertion back into her life right now, or the gun he’s currently pointing at her and suddenly she’s back in the pub with the bodies of Denya and Seevus and Tomin aiming his weapon at her, and then she’s back with her third husband who aimed his sidearm at her as she scurried up the stairs and heard the resonating boom as she locked herself in the bathroom.

None of it shocks her anymore, the abuse, the mistrust, the same traits in men she fancies. The newborn who was three-years-old and now eight, the one whom she carried and begrudgingly hoped to change but wants her to change instead.

They all just want her to change.

“What do you mean?”

Daniel cocks and eyebrow at her, the guns steady in his hand and aimed again at her stomach when there’s nothing left in her, except for the phantom pains in her pelvis that her daughter cured and the milk swelling her breasts and the words out of her mouth are more of an admittance to herself than him.

“I had a baby.”

“What?”

“Didn’t the others inform you of my precarious condition?” Arches and eyebrow at him and sits on the edge of the bed, not entirely content with the way her body feels, but it’s more than handleable after the labor, and her baby was taken and she never got to hold her and now she’s old growing older and more cruel and it’s her fault.

“Nooooo.”

“Well let me catch you up. The Ori forcibly impregnated me when I got sucked through the supergate into their galaxy. I married a devout Ori follower so I wasn’t burned at the stake for a third time, and carried the child even though I knew it to be the Orici. She was born a few hours ago, I didn’t get to hold her and now she’s eight.”

“Wait, wait, what?” he holsters the weapon and approaches her, a wave of confusion over his face. “You’re the mother of the Orici?”

“Yes and before you even ask the thought of ridding myself of her had occurred to me but I couldn’t do it Daniel, I couldn’t.” Tears fill her eyes and she sobs into her open hands, she hates it here, more a prisoner here than on Earth, she hates birthing their greatest enemy, she hates being weak for not taking responsibility, more responsibility.

“Hey, hey, hey.” He plops onto the bed next to her, his hand touching her shoulder with compassion. “Are you okay?”

“What do you mean?” Asks with a sniffle and a bit of a hiccup. Later she will attribute the small lapse in emotional strength to hormones that she shouldn’t even have anymore.

“You gave birth and they took your baby.” When his hand moves to her face she flinches briefly, and he stops his movement, then tenderly wipes a tear from her cheek with his thumb. “Those are both traumatic events, are you doing okay.”

Sniffles again, and draws her hand up to rid herself of her remaining tears, doesn’t question his compassion or his understanding, if he overlooks her brief lapse in character, she’ll overlook his as well. “Are you going back to Earth?”

“Hopefully.”

Before his hand settles back by his side she grabs it from the air and holds it with intensity. “Please don’t leave me here.”

*

Tomin spurts hateful words as he enters the chamber, staff once again drawn and pointed. She doesn’t need to protect her daughter this time, her daughter and it’s so unusual to say because she’s not her mother in any sense but biologically. The Ori forced the child within her and countered her attempts to thwart her birth. On planets with extended rights and better governments, the Ori would be imprisoned for the forced conception which uncompacted would lead to more dire charges.

Her daughter, the Orici.

Her daughter the Orici.

Just the Orici because she never saw her when she was a tiny baby, but she felt the feet in her ribs, felt the nausea and hunger pains and it’s the Orici not her daughter.

But she loves her and want to protect her, deprogram her, but the hate in her own child’s eyes as she glares at Daniel, the orange tinted irises, the curl of her lips as she points and demands his death.

So she leaps, and takes the shot almost poetically in the same area Adria healed as a barely understandable toddler. It hurts just as badly as it did before, just as badly as it did when she tore from the pressure of a large baby escaping her, being yanked out of her and whisked away for greater things.

Maybe she should be proud.

All three of them rush to her, forget their vast differences as her daughter replaces her hand where she was housed eight hours ago for the better part of ten months. The light is warm, and her muscles unwind and skin reattaches. Tomin holds her hand and speaks to her softly, and she cannot peg him, doesn’t understand if he truly cares for her, or is more interested in her out of duty because she births religious figureheads. Her head rests against Daniel’s hard thighs and his hands string her hair back from her face.

Daniel shoots them of course at about the three-quarter way through her healing, and she can’t quiet sit up because it feels like birthing all over again without the stretching and a certain omnipresent pressure. Her husband, number four of four, lies face down unconscious on the floor and her daughter curled on her side.

His arms scoop under hers as he helps her regain her balance, his fingers trace over the burned section of her dress, the heavy, hot dress, and skim the blistered skin. “Don’t worry about me, get her,” she hisses nodding to her daughter.

“Like that’s going to happen.” His arm returns to her back, offering her support as she leans into him.

Wants to argue with him, take the Orici, empty her head of the brainwash, tell her she loved her and leave her here as a sacrifice, it’s a worthy death, a parent sacrificing their life for their child’s, but before she can articulate, the walls ring with fire. The prior walks through and the memories of burning, of shackles and dehydration, of being masticated in bed and waking pregnant tremble her body more than pain ever could and she clasps onto Daniel. He glances to her, but she can’t say a word.

The prior disarms him, one eye and a malicious grin upon his face. Her skin sizzles and sweats as the fire grows nearer. But Daniel sparkles beside her, locking onto her and they disappear into the coolness of the rings on the Odyssey.  

When they materialize, her knees buckle under her own weight and the pressure it puts on her abdomen. She falls back into him, taking him with her to the ground.

“Vala?” Calls to her, a bit frantic as his hands again dust away the hair from her face. “Vala?”

“I’m okay, darling. Just tired”

She then spends three days in the infirmary, her wound debrided, and the remaining skin stitched back together with sterile little strips of plastic. On her fourth day on the Odyssey, she can return to her room, which was never her room before, but they delegated it to her. It has a plain bed, plain furniture and is completely indiscernible from any other bedroom on the ship.

The blue glow of hyperspace blares from outside her window and she hears her door open and then close. Forgets the lack of privacy they offer her, the lack of independence, the lack of locks on her doors and a personal washroom.

“How are you feeling.” In the reflection of the window she sees him wearing different green BDUs, his hand stuffed in his pockets with childlike innocence.

“I’m trying not to,” she replies to the window, to the blue shifting glow.

Expects him to ask about the fire, why it frightened her beside the obvious traumatic experiences tainting her, ask about Adria and the Ori and where they might be going or their weapons and ships, or Tomin and their relationship, or anything really because Daniel loves to talk as much as she does, but her body is still rippling from the last four days, confused and trying to patch itself up while continuously getting more hurt.

Her daughter is an adult by now, and was raised by a religion intended on killing trillions.

She flinches again at his hand on her shoulder, and he turns her from the blue shroud and towards him, bringing her head to pillow against his shoulder. His hand rubs up and down her spine and the trembling in her system settles.

Against her ear, his voice is emotional but clear as he whispers, “I missed you.”


	3. Cold Blood

It’s life or death. That’s all it is.

The blast fades around her because Sam takes the brunt of it directly in her back. Her friend, hands still wet from delivering the baby, slumps over into unconsciousness, all the while she’s maneuvered to grab the staff Daniel left for protection and manages to score one last blast to the face. Her aim is impeccable, her luck, however, is faltering. Perhaps it’s the hormonal rush and combating calmness of post-birth. Everything moves slower, is clearer, and she’s so very tired.

Blood flows freely from Sam’s back mixing with hers and on the floor. Her legs are wet and cold and her body aches, but in her arms sits a very red, very tiny smoosh-faced person that she’s spent the last nine or so months creating and she’s not about to let someone else do the parenting on this one as well.

The decision to unwrap her child, is difficult. The little body scowling and screaming at being completely nude and drenched in birth burdens her guilt, but she slides the baby into the front of her very loose dress, nestling against her breast. She then folds Daniel’s jacket into a square and transfers it to Sam’s back, driving all her weight into stemming the blood which is difficult to do while trying to aim a staff weapon at the door and not smothering her newborn.

The exhaustion sweeps over her body, her limbs start to shake with exertion and her eyes grow heavy turning her position into more of a lean than anything else. Fast footfalls echo down the corridor and her eyes burst open, her body half turning, grazing the moderately temperatured infant mewling at her chest. The adrenaline is not much, but it keeps her focused enough until the two men, her two men, pile into the doorway, pausing for a moment at the sheer amount of blood puddling over the floors: hers from giving birth, Samantha’s from the wound, the soldier whose face she just blasted off.

They both reboot and scramble in like in those old black and white comedy pictures Shepperd likes to watch with the bumbling men. Daniel slides to his knees coming to rest between her and Sam, his hands hovering unsure of who to attend to first. She nods her head towards their unconscious friend and allows him to shoo her hands away so he can inspect the wound.

Ronon gently pries her cold hand away from the staff and sets it to the side, his warm fingers bunching around hers. When she leans her head back into him, selfishly trying to absorb as much as his warmth as she can, he dips to the ground on his knees, planting himself behind her for support. “Are you okay?”

“What happened?” Daniel is more in panic mode which involves him spurting out questions, then shushing them while he listens to Sam’s breathing, then becoming irritated when they don’t answer and finishing with shushing them so he can take Sam’s blood pressure.  

A large warm hand coats the side of her face and she blinks back awake, another shudder flowing through her body. With his free hand he cups under her arm, holding the rump of the baby completely in his palm. “Are they okay?”

The query silences Daniel’s rapid-fire questions and the low-voiced rambling of discussing situational outcomes with himself. His hand drifts up from Sam’s neck and he stares at her through the blood splatter on his glasses and it becomes apparent that in the horror of finding Samantha so injured, he forgot she was giving birth.

“He’s fine.” Sighs out and from her sheer cold, she expects to see the words as wisps in the air. Wraps her arms more around him willing him to take whatever warmth she has, but she’s breathing more rapidly now, through the shudders, growing more tired and a pain stabs at her side. “He’s just—” huffs out, and blinks a few times to keep herself grounded. “He’s just cold.”

Despite fighting to keep her consciousness, she is well aware of the looks her boys exchange. She hears Daniel mutter the word ‘son’ and Ronon’s hand folds around the infant rubbing a bit to create friction. There is silence for a few minutes when her eyes close, but then a jostle behind her wakes her again. “—what?”

Daniel lifts his head from assessing Sam, his BDU jacket still buried at her wound. “Most of the blood flow has stopped.” He wipes the back of his hand across his sweating brow and readjusts his glasses. “But Sam is going to need surgery, we have to get her back.”

“I can help them if you can help Carter.”

Hears the words echo around in Ronon’s chest and the deep thump of his heart.

“I can’t carry Sam and shoot.”

Her eyes are closed again with the conversation muting, until her son cries against her chest. Instinctively she sits back up, stroking a finger over his soft cheek. When his crying doesn’t cease, she repositions him, cradled with his feet laying between her breasts and his mouth doesn’t take long to clamp down. “Ah.”

“What?” Both ask in unison, aborting their discussion.

“Yes, he’s just—he’s not a gentle eater.”

Ronon chuckles, removes his chin from her shoulder, his beard no longer itching at her skin, and fiddles with the loose stitching of the dress, tying it up so the gown doesn’t topple from her shoulders when she’s moved.

Daniel sighs, removing his glasses completely and sliding them to hang off the collar of his shirt. “You carry Sam. Vala and I will cover your six.”

“Danny Boy, she just had a baby. Your b—”

“Believe it or not, I know that but we’re running out of time and ideas here, so if you have anything better—”

“Enough. Enough.” Her heels scrape through the blood and her knees jostle as she stands, Ronon’s hands hover, Daniel’s hands hover and the only sound is the constant smacking of her son’s lips. “Let’s just go.”

*

They’re fine until they’re in the last corridor before the rings. Ronon sneaks ahead of them, Samantha spread over his shoulder with one hand supporting her and the other on his drawn gun. Her footsteps begin to grow precarious, bare feet drying icy against the metal grates. When Ronon ducks into the ring room, she slips, stumbles into the Daniel before her and the wall, arms consuming her son from any damaging fall.

But Daniel catches her, and she winces as a third strike of pain shoots through her abdomen. Doesn’t remember the post birth being this painful with Adria, but then again, the Orici had healed her completely.

“You okay?” His hands are on her bare shoulders poking out of the cut of the dress. “You’re freezing.”

Wants to implore him to continue onwards, down the hall and to the left and back to Atlantis to her nice warm bed and shower and all the beautiful gifts everyone has collected for her. “We need to—”

“You’re really pale too.”

“Always the charm—” Her word transforms into a guttural screech as she almost doubles over. She feels as if she’s in labor again. How is she in labor again? It wasn’t twins, knows that for certain, and her mind vaguely drifts back to reclining in the big comfy Ori bed, Tomin at her side, his hand actually on her side as she complained of pain and the maidens exchanged nervous glances at each other. The cold, the stress, the exertion, the shock, everything pushes down on her, and she thinks before she starts to faint, that she calls his name.

*

Awakens warm and clean and covered by many heavy and ornate sheets. She’s in her own room, but there’s an IV sticking out of her arm chaining her to a dripping bag of clear fluids. Her eyes are still a bit heavy and her breasts ache, her face squishes in confusion and when her hand drops to her stomach which is not entirely flat, but no longer smuggling another human and she almost screams.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay.” Ronon pops up from an arm chair, his eyes a little dull and very dark meaning he’s just woken from a nap, her son coddled in his arms. “You’re safe, he’s safe.”

Reaches her hands out and the transfer of the warm little body to her arms is enough to make the baby gurgle, enough to make her start to cry. “He’s okay?”

“Keller checked him out head to toe, couldn’t find a damn thing wrong with him.” He sits on the edge of the bed, his hand covering her pointed foot and then jostling it. “He’s probably hungry though, it’s been hours since we got off the ship.”

Nods, her head still unclear, memory still muddy as she lifts the scrub top and positions her son at her other breast. “I’m still unclear as to what—”

“Sam’s in surgery. She’s been there since you got back.”

Samantha delivered the baby, the boy at her breast nuzzling her and sucking, making the sweetest little noises—she was shot. By the staff, the Ori. “Is she going to make it?”

Ducks his head away momentarily, staring at the orange outside of her large window, the sun reflecting purple over the ocean. Then clears his throat but speaks directly to her. “They don’t know, Vala.”

Nods and holds her son closer, the warmth of his skin, the muscles moving in his back. “I was—I was in a lot of pain.”

“You scared me. You scared me something good.” Scoots towards her on the bed, his hand still warm on the side of her cheek and neck. “I don’t know the Tau’ri word, but the organ used to nourish the baby—”

“Placenta.”

Snaps his fingers with a grin. “That, it got stuck.”

Memories of Tomin sitting petrified beside her in the bed as the maidens tried multiple concoctions to rid her of the afterbirth and failing. Their hands smashing down on her stomach trying to start the process and her fighting them off, howling in pain. “I think—I think that happened last time.”

“With Adria?”

“Yes, she ended up healing me, but I’d entirely forgotten. I told Daniel that I—” And he turns away from her. Turns away and doesn’t look back. The baby hiccups against her breast, his cheeks falling flat. She brings him up to her shoulder to burp him, it’s instinctive, almost mechanical but her eyes never falter from Ronon.

He reaches forward, readjusts her top so it offers her some modesty in case anyone else were to drop by her room. Pinches a bit of the loose fabric and dabs at the infant’s drooling lips. “How’s the little man doing—”

“Ronon.” Pats her son’s back, her hand slips into his, and his fingers curl around hers, protective as always. Tugs on his hand and he drifts further up the bed, pecks her lips, her cheek, her forehead, before sighing against the top of her head. “Tell me.”

“Daniel never made it back through the rings.”


End file.
